We present a model of fixing or patching a software problem after the product has been released in the market. Specifically, we model a software firm's trade-off in releasing a buggy product early and investments in fixing it later. Just as the marginal cost of producing software can be...

The Internet provides copyright holders with new sales and promotional channels for their content, while also providing consumers with new opportunities to illegally obtain free copies of this content. Unfortunately, disentangling these two effects is extremely difficult. In this paper we...

In the United States, identity theft resulted in corporate and consumer losses of $56 billion dollars in 2005, with up to 35 percent of known identity thefts caused by corporate data breaches. Many states have responded by adopting data breach disclosure laws that require firms to notify...

Software vulnerabilities represent a serious threat to cybersecurity, most cyberattacks exploit known vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, there is no agreed-upon policy for their disclosure. Disclosure policy (which sets a protected period given to a vendor to release the patch for the...

Software vulnerability disclosure has become a critical area of concern for policymakers. Traditionally, a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) acts as an infomediary between benign identifiers (who voluntarily report vulnerability information) and software users. After verifying a reported...

Much debate exists around the impact that illegal file sharing may have on the creative industries. Similarly, opinions differ regarding whether the producers of artistic works should be forced to accept any weakening of intellectual property rights resulting from illegal file sharing, or if...

type="main" <p>Despite the problem that filesharing poses to the creative industries, there is little research on the effectiveness of governmental anti-piracy policies. This study analyzes how the HADOPI<link href="#joie12056-note-0009"/> graduated response law in France affected digital music sales. Using a panel of sales data...</p>

The availability of digital channels for media distribution has raised many important questions for marketers, notably, whether digital distribution channels will cannibalize physical sales and whether legitimate digital distribution channels will dissuade consumers from using (illegitimate)...

We conduct a field study in a U.S. health insurance firm to examine how product customization affects the firm's cost to serve customers through its call center. In our setting, the product is a complex health insurance plan. The firm incurs substantial costs in serving the customers through its...

Junk e-mail or spam is rapidly choking off e-mail as a reliable and efficient means of communication over the Internet. Although the demand for human attention increases rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of attention hardly changes. Markets are a social...